Hacker Club Publishes German Official's Fingerprint

A number of readers let us know about the Chaos Computer Club's latest caper: they published the fingerprint of German Secretary of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (link is to a Google translation of the German original). The club has been active in opposition to Germany's increasing push to use biometrics in, for example, e-passports. Someone friendly to the club's aims captured Schäuble's fingerprint from a glass he drank from at a panel discussion. The club published 4,000 copies of their magazine Die Datenschleuder including a plastic foil reproducing the minister's fingerprint — ready to glue to someone else's finger to provide a false biometric reading. The CCC has a page on their site detailing how to make such a fake fingerprint. The article says a ministry spokesman alluded to possible legal action against the club.

Comments

Re:Good for them

[swright]

Maybe this is what you meant, but I just think this is the perfect example to illustrate to all how biometrics are just NOT the be-all and end-all. If only for the one simple fact that he cannot change his fingerprint like he could a password that got compromised!

Re:Good for them

[aproposofwhat]

Two words.

Duress codes.

Enter one code to authenticate normally, another to flag up that you are being forced to authenticate.

Not quite ironclad, but an extra level of safety.

There actually *are* things to like about Germany

[Qbertino]

The CCC is one of the things I like about Germany. It highlights a major element of german-style citizen-culture. It's clearly opposed to uncontrolled gouverment and any notion of a police-state. It has a taste of anarchy to it and on its fringes it has inofficial members with ties to the black-hat community. Yet it is a well organised official registered German association that speaks up on behalf of the people and democracy. With a 27-year tradition of keeping the public political debate alive on IT related rights-issues by perpetually coming up with creative ways of gaining attention. This recent 'Schäuble-Fingerprint' stunt being one of them. I don't know if they've exposed their selves with legal liability by doing this (after all it was officially published in their magazine 'Datenschleuder') but it sure is as funny, hilarious and exposing as ever. Creative non-sense at its best. Go, CCC!